As secure as the maximum-security Security prison was supposed to be, we got in with no trouble. The planet must be a regular yarn-ball of those rocky tubes. If you know the layout, you can apparently get anywhere from anywhere. Our only excursion from the steady upward climb had been a brief stop-off in one of those fungus-lighted rooms. Clatclit picked up my collapser and returned it to me. I felt infinitely more confidant of success with its thick golden handle jutting out of my holster once more. Perhaps I could just find Baxter, sneak a bolt into his face, and scurry off into the labyrinth on Clatclit's heels. I knew, even as I thought it, that I wouldn't be able to just blast him like that. I'd probably have to face up to him, pull an "All right, pardner--draw!" sort of sentence on him, and then pray that I was faster. It was unthinkable for me to act in any other manner. The give-a-guy-a-chance instinct was part of our national heritage, something called the code of the West, handed down to us by pioneer forefathers. The method of ingress to the building was simplicity itself. The tunnel we'd been negotiating came to an abrupt end at a wall of granite slabs such as had buttressed my prison cell. I reached for the collapser, but Clatclit laid a restraining claw on my hand. I watched, curious, as he put his left ear-orifice to the wall and listened intently. Then, seeming satisfied, he put his hands on the biggest slab of granite and pushed. Nothing happened for a moment. Then the slab began to pivot about some central axis, and a one-foot gap was exposed on either side of its bulk. Beyond the open spaces, bright fluorescent tubing lighted a grim prison corridor. "Isn't there an easier way to the spaceport?" I said. A prison meant guards, and guards meant collapsers, and collapsers meant, possibly, good-by Jery Delvin. But Clatclit shrugged, pointed into the tunnel, and made zig-zag motions with both hands, all the while shaking his head in weary disgust. "There is, but it'd take forever to get there, huh?" I interpreted. He nodded. Oh well. Clatclit leading the way, we sidled through the right-hand gap, then he pressed the mammoth stone back into place. "You're coming with me all the way?" I asked, surprised. Somehow, I'd thought his guideship ended at the same place the tunnel did. Clatclit nodded vigorously. "Is it that the Ancients don't trust me?" Headshake. "You have nothing better to do?" Negative. "Okay, I'll bite. Why?" Clatclit stepped toward me, placed a hand on my shoulder, then placed his free hand over my heart, moved it over his own, held up two fingers and crossed them. "Because we're friends," I said softly. Clatclit nodded.